When the U.S. government announced criminal charges against Binance on Tuesday, it marked the successful culmination of a years-long campaign to bring the crypto world's biggest, and wildest, company to heel. The significance of the occasion was reflected by the attorney general and the secretary of the Treasury holding a joint news conference to share the details, which included that Binance would pay $4.3 billion in penalties—among the largest fines in corporate history—and that CEO Changpeng Zhao would step down and pay $50 million as part of a three-count indictment for money laundering.
The announcement, accompanied by legal settlements with three different federal agencies, also underscored a dramatic change of fortune for both Binance and Zhao from two years ago. In 2021, the company was reaping billions from a massive speculative bubble, while its CEO delighted in flitting from country to country in an illusory bid to operate beyond the reach of regulators. On Tuesday, that freewheeling era came to an end when a soft-spoken Zhao appeared in federal court in Seattle to bow to U.S. authorities.
